


Arcadia

by f0rt1ss1m0



Series: Sing for Her [4]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Cuddling, F/F, Fluff, Future Fic, Gem touching, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5732914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f0rt1ss1m0/pseuds/f0rt1ss1m0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peridots are made to know things, but when the rebel returns to where everything began, she finds a question she can't answer.</p><p>"Do you ever regret it?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arcadia

**Author's Note:**

> inspired much by the song arcadia by great states and because also the thought of "wow, my head hurts, maybe i should go to bed" has no meaning to me.
> 
> it's midnight now.

The sky thickened as it always did on Earth, with blues, then orange, then pink and purple and back to her favorite color, back to a deep blue. It changed a little — there were things about Earth that even the Crystal Gems couldn't fix, like how from the temple it was impossible to see the stars. But that was just the way of things, and Peridot knew this as well as the others. With her young eyes, she had seen planets rise and fall in a matter of months, corrupting just as their gem inhabitants do, from the inside out. Oh, it never took the Diamond Authority to strike the first destructive blow. And she mused again and time again that Earth would pass through the same cycle, if not a little slower. It had guardians the others did not.

There were a couple places you could still see Homeworld from the surface, and every year or so, Peridot sneaked out in the dead of night and warped to one for a short time. Tonight, it was to the Galaxy Warp, and she sat cross legged on the puzzle-pieced rubble for which, once upon a time, she had placed her life on the line. As she dragged her finger across the fractured surface, she smiled at the irony. How she'd wanted to go home to something that wasn't even — this pad hadn't been functional for over a century.

Above, Homeworld's galaxy glimmered just as always among the billions of others, banded and swirling in the velvet blue sky.

The sound of another warp pad made Peridot sit up, but it was just the Amethyst — her Amethyst. "Did Garnet tell you?" Peridot asked her as the small quartz plodded up the unstable stairs of the Galaxy Warp. Her hair swayed with her movements and the warm summer breeze, and she pushed it out of her eyes as she sat down beside Peridot.

"Nah. Kinda figured out myself, you know."

Her eyes were transfixed on the sky too. After a few seconds, Amethyst let herself lie down fully on the warp pad, a clear invitation, and Peridot couldn't stifle the warmth pulsing in the depths of her gem. She didn't often do this in an open space — but with Amethyst here, perhaps, she could let herself be vulnerable. She also let herself lie helplessly on her back, and with a brief glow, she dismissed her limb enhancers and let her primary appendages into the open air. When she lay like this next to the other young gem, their hair mingled, and Amethyst's fingers wandered across the back of Peridot's soft bare hand.

Out of nowhere, she asked, "You ever regret it?"

Her eyes lingered on the partial star on Peridot's chest — she'd never submitted to a full star partly because she couldn't think of anything that wasn't too cheesy, partly out of respect. Pearl especially had been sensitive to star additions, and Peridot could understand that. Her most recent regeneration was the closest, with folds of fabric tailored in epaulets similar to her Diamond uniform, except tapered to points and overlapping into the two bottom angles of a concave decagon. With some imagination, you could piece out the other three angles above them.

"Explain," she asked Amethyst, and the other gem did.

"Coming here, I guess. Being assigned this mission. Do you ever think of Yellow Diamond, like, what would've happened if you just...?"

Amethyst didn't complete the question, but she didn't have to. If they'd been really into the conversation, or if they'd been fused, she wouldn't have had to even start it. Peridot looked up again and exhaled — she did, oh, of all the human processes she'd been introduced to, she really did like breathing. "I have never successfully answered that inquiry, even to myself," she admitted.

When she looked back to Amethyst, the quartz had quirked an eyebrow. Her fingers had moved up to Peridot's hair, threading and combing through the immaculate pale locks.

"I mean," Peridot elaborated, "I don't like to think about them. It's over now."

"I know." Far above, a shooting star tore across the sky — no, no, not a shooting star. That was a Khaoi battle ship traveling at sublight speed, most likely destined for System Cancri E 55 and slowing down for repairs. Amethyst probably didn't know the difference though, because she closed her eyes and whispered a wish of something under her breath. "But, like...are you _happier_ here?"

"Situationally variant comparatives are not my strong suit, Amethyst, and don't you dare laugh at any of that basic terminology."

She gave a sleepy smile and her fingers went down again, curling between Peridot's. The physical contact flowed with warmth through her gem and she knew that she was blushing, but that didn't matter; they were alone.

"All right, then — look, a yes or no question. You like those."

She did admit that yes, she liked those. "And what is it?"

"Before you came, if you could'a traded places with another Peridot, would you do it?"

The question came out all in one breath — this had been rolling around in Amethyst's head before now. It was a tired question, something that hardly made sense, but which in the mind of one exhausted and anxious could raise serious threats; she knew these questions. Amethyst knew what it was like, to be so far out of her comfort zone, to be constantly pressured to be something she wasn't meant to be, to fight a fight she wasn't meant to. And she'd applied what she knew about herself to what she knew about Peridot and it had festered and churned inside of her for years and years before finally breaking free, even without being completely formed yet. And that's what she'd been afraid of.

The sky was captivating, but Peridot tore her eyes from it once and for all and pushed herself onto her side. The warmth in her gem pulsed ever stronger and, swaying with its waves, she let herself drift to the lingering hands of a gem who loved her. "If I could trade with another Peridot," she murmured. "If I could give another Peridot the opportunity to experience...all of this."

They slipped down again into a position that had long since become so familiar, with Amethyst reclined and Peridot curled on top of her, their bodies pressed together — Peridot's hands in Amethyst's beautiful hair and Amethyst' arms around Peridot's slim waist. Amethyst smelled of buttercream frosting and something else unplaceable. She blinked slowly, with a magnetic attraction that was just _so_ distracting, so that Peridot could never realize how close she was until Amethyst's hair brushed against her gemstone.

"No."

Amethyst blinked again, but quicker, and with wide eyes. "Wh..."

"I wouldn't do it," Peridot said firmly. She'd drawn sharply away from Amethyst in the words, and it didn't take much to pull her back. "I...I wouldn't trade anything for this. I'm sorry if you ever felt that way."

"Peridot." It was almost a gasp, not quite, and it was followed by a kiss. Like all of their kisses, Amethyst led it, pressing her full lips against Peridot's small ones, teasing with the angle of her head until Peridot opened her mouth and fell into it. Everything always moved too fast like this. Once, their teeth bumped, and they parted with half-hearted laughs and heat in their cheeks.

"It's okay, nerd," Amethyst grinned, and then shifted up to kiss Peridot's gem.

To have those warm lips on the hard surface of all that Peridot was — to be there in the closest way, to take the heat underneath and send it blazing inside her at the contact — it was beautiful. With a gasp at the sensation, Peridot nearly collapsed onto Amethyst, her small hands involuntarily pulling at her shirt. "Stars...only a fool would give this up."

"Takes a fool to fall like this, though." Her thick hand caressed the side of Peridot's face with controlled pressure, easing them both into the place where they fit like puzzle pieces into each other, with Peridot's head nestled just above Amethyst's chest, her hands rested on Amethyst's shoulders. She placed a single kiss against the top Amethyst's warm gem, two quicker ones to the side. And at a small nod from Amethyst, Peridot tilted her head down and carefully, slowly let their facets meet.

Peridot bit back everything that she begged to say, to sob into Amethyst's shoulder. To touch stones wasn't just to swear fealty, but to bind the passion of the two gems, to connect the emotion with their physical properties and forge a unity not unlike fusion, except with more of this overwhelming pleasure for their corporeal beings. And as Amethyst would say, the big words didn't do it justice. It was freezing heat, it was burning cold, it was a flood of euphoria when Amethyst gasped her name.

It didn't last long; it never could. After they touched, they stayed, fingers intertwined, and eventually, Amethyst put her arms around her from behind in an action she'd once called "spooning". Whatever it was, it was very relaxing, and Peridot didn't think to look up once. Amethyst's breath was light on her neck, and at just the right time, she pressed a slow kiss to Peridot's skin.

So it took a fool to love. But she was here under this same starry blue sky; she lay here with a defective quartz, held in the strong arms someone who understood; she felt the fissured warp pad under her bare fingers and felt safe because there was a different way for her to take, to a different home, to a different Diamond. So it took a fool to love this life — fine. But only a monster could regret it, and she was no monster. She was here, in Amethyst's arms, at peace on the Earth.

Peridot closed her eyes.


End file.
